


The Prisoner

by Stormontheocean



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5640610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormontheocean/pseuds/Stormontheocean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kylo is Luke's prisoner. Rey ends up delivering meals. I don't think it's going anywhere romantic. There's a lot of yelling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Prisoner

It's the absolute impotent rage from the cell that alerts both her and Luke to him waking up. It hits their meditating psyches like a sledgehammer on bags of wet sand; no damage done, but spectacularly effective at leaving a dent.

She slumps to the side under its force. Across from her, Luke gives a pained grunt.”The wards holding him in make him feel stronger than he is,” he mutters by way of explanation. “It reflects what can't escape out into space back to the planet. I'll handle it.”

Without a word, he disappears in the direction of the cave they've put him in.

_12 hours earlier..._

The ship's arrival is completely unannounced, but that doesn't make it unexpected. Rey – engines and mechanical parts calling to her as they've always done – feels it coming from outside the orbit of their quiet little planet. She has no idea when Luke sensed it, as he doesn't say, just appears to stand next to her at the same time it comes into view, both of them staring up at the dot in the sky that's growing steadily bigger.

They're both rendered speechless, however, when Poe and Finn drag out a maskless and very unconscious Kylo Ren.

“What-” she manages before Luke waves a hand, cutting her off and pinning both the other men with a glare before giving a resigned sigh.

“They're right,” the Jedi mutters.

“Right about what?” Rey asks as Finn and Poe exchange glances that she's learning are staple expressions around Luke, namely ones that say 'how the heck did he know that?'

Luke addresses the other two men. “You didn't expect his capture, and no one else knows about it. It was an accident. But you can't take him back to base; there's still a lot of anger in the resistance about him killing Han, but Leia would forgive and ask for him to be pardoned just as everyone else was roaring for his head. To return him to the resistance would mean a rebellion against her leadership when they need it most. To return him to the First Order is unthinkable. To kill an unconscious and helpless man, even a killer such as this, is not something either of you can stomach. And to allow him to regain consciousness would mean both of your deaths, and the deaths of anyone else near him as he'd immediately signal The First Order where he was and to come and get him. Frankly, the only other solution than bringing him to me was to shove him into a block of carbonite and wait for the decades of arguing to die down.”

Rey gapes at him. Both Finn and Poe look vaguely guilty. “We've been keeping him drugged,” mutters Finn, as if even that will be keeping him up at night.

Luke doesn't sigh, but his shoulders shift as if he'd like to. “I can keep him contained, but word of his absence will get out, and it won't be long before people realise you two must know something.”

“We know, but, ah,” Poe begins.

“We've got nothing else,” Finn finishes, and Rey has a sudden pang of guilt that she's missed them this much, missed them becoming so close they're finishing each other's sentences.

“I know,” Luke acknowledges heavily, and with a wave of his hand, the unconscious form rises, and he turns to walk away.

_Now_

He's gone a long time, and the emotions from the cave become mere echoes. Rey doesn't think that he's calmed down, of course, she suspects Luke is shielding the both of them, because some of those echoes don't sound like Ben.

Ben. She will call him that. If it annoys him, angers him, shames him, so much the better. Her gut still churns at the thought of what he's done, she still sees Han's fragile form fall from that platform when she closes her eyes sometimes.

The emotions that come with it are alien and scary in their own right. Luke keeps telling her to breath through it, to ignore them, that the Jedi way is control and order and calm. To step away from those feelings. She tries, and seems to spend half her time in meditation as a result.

Lonely little scavenger girl – she's used to what emotions she creates in herself. It's those others create in her that are new and hard to handle.

Luke says nothing when he returns from the cave, he just looks tired around the eyes before he signals them both back to...that's right, mediation again.

For three days Luke periodically disappears into the cave where Ben is held, taking food and water with him. He says nothing to her, but with each day passing, he looks more worn out.

On the third day, she breaks the silence between them on it. “Stop blocking him,” she blurts. “I'll never learn to deal with it if you don't, and it's wearing you down. What are we going to do if he breaks out and you're too tired to stop him? I only won last time because he was...” she trails off. She'd been going to say 'injured' but that wasn't it, or wasn't all of it. There had been something else off about him, but she's not sure how to put it into words.

Luke is shaking his head. “Such emotions could have a negative effect on you. You're my only pupil. I can't risk you.”

She presses her lips into a hard line rather than arguing. 

It's two more days before the subject comes up again, and Luke speaks on it this time, when he looks 5 years older and the skin around his eyes is taking on a grey tinge.

“You take it in,” he gestures to the plates holding lunch in front of them – still just processed protein, for the most part, but better than anything she could remember growing up.

She wants to ask why, but stops herself. The question apparently projects itself loud enough to be heard anyway.

“Two reasons – the first is if he has someone other than me to talk to, he might stop fighting me quite this hard. And secondly...it's a long shot, but we are all that is left, we three. The only three in the galaxy with the Light in us. His is buried deep but if we could bring it back...”

She stares at him. “How? He's a killer! How am I supposed to do that?!” She's all but squeaking by the last question. Once again, she wishes she'd had five more seconds, all those months ago. Just five more. Just enough to run her lightsaber through his heart, like he'd done to Han.

“Be his friend,” is Luke's response.

“You're joking.”

“I know it's hard. And likely impossible. But...just have that end point in mind.”

She's frozen for a second before grabbing the plate and canister without a word and stalking in the direction of the cave.

It takes her eyes a moment to adjust to the gloom. The man she's supposed to befriend – if Luke weren't her master, she might actually give voice to some of the expletives in her head rather than just letting them buzz between her ears – is sat on the bed in his 'cell'. Still wearing his tattered black robe, and sporting several day's worth of stubble. His hair is greasy and flat against his skull. He has a bruise on his temple that is still in vivid bloom against his pale skin, even in the dark of the cave.

She imagines he doesn't smell too great up close, but the sea air is, thankfully, rendering that a merely hypothetical observation.

It's not much of a cell. Metal bars, that were Luke's power not wrapped in a stranglehold around his, Ben could have bent with a throught, embedded in the ceiling and floor. A single bed with a thin mattress on it. One blanket. An evac latrine and what looks like a basic sink. Not exactly the comforts of home.

She jams the plate through the slot designed for it and all but tosses the canister of water in through the bars. He watches them fall, the slightest twitch of his right eye telling her he'd tried to catch them with the Force, and failed.

She backs off several steps, and it's only when she does that he rises, robes making his limbs seem long and lanky, and strides forward to collect the food, nearly but not quite concealing a limp on his right hand side, that fills her with fierce joy. He's hurt. _Good._

He glances at her and she knows he heard her. She doesn't care. He doesn't seem to either.

He retreats, food in hand. She stands, rooted to the ground, her master's instructions keeping her there until she's at least _tried_. She tries to think...if she was captured by her enemy, stuck in a dank cell and cut off from her powers, what would she want from her captors?

An easy escape route or a quick and merciful death, really. Neither of which she's about to provide.

“Do you need anything?” She manages to get out.

He looks at her flatly, and then returns his attention to the protein shape, giving the offer all the respect it deserves in both their eyes.

“Yeah, didn't think so,” she mutters, leaving.

Luke looks a little better the next day, but is still spending all his time mediating. She's left to go over the basic combat forms on her own, and cooks food for the three of them, taking Ben's share in to him, forming an uneasy routine – she checks he isn't dead and leaves the food, he ignores her presence when she's there and eats what he's given when she isn't.

By the third day of this, Luke's skin has regained the grey tinge. He cracks an eye when she goes to serve him breakfast. “How is your side of things going?” he manages is a low croaky tone.

She flushes. “Er. I'll...I'll try harder.”

He closes his eyes again. “Do, or do not. There is no try.”

She purses her lips and stomps towards the cave.

This time when she leaves the food, she doesn't back away, but rather stands her ground, glaring.

He sighs and doesn't bother to meet her eyes. “What is it you want?”

“Stop fighting him so hard.”

“Why? I've nothing better to do, and it's not a bad outcome for the First Order if we both drop dead of exhaustion.”

She clenches her fists – she'd really, really love to punch him. In the face. Repeatedly.

“I'll give you something better to do,” she grinds out from between her teeth. It sounds more like a threat than anything else.

Now he's watching her. “Interesting.” There is a slight frown on his face.

The urge to punch him is staying firmly in place. “What is?”

He stands and strides to the bars. Not quite within reach were she to lunge, but not far away. “You hate me.”

“You killed Han. You own father!” Her voice rises to a shout.

He waves her words away with a brief gesture, apparently unmoved by her outburst. “I know _why_. What's interesting is that he's letting you hate me. It's the first step to the dark side, or so they so desperately tried to impress on me when I was in training. You've been here for months, and yet there you stand, still as desperate as ever to smash my brains out with the nearest rock without a word of rebuke. I wonder why.”

She glares. “Maybe they saw that stopping you hate didn't help, because you still turned traitor.”

For just a second there is a flare of matching emotion in his gaze before it's gone as quickly as it came. “Do you know the swiftest way to ensure someone will hate nearly everything? Tell him he can hate nothing. Forbid him from any negative emotions at all. It's like that phrase 'if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all', only it's your thoughts, and if you do ever think anything bad, they'll know, because they're jedi and they're in your head.”

She steps up to the bars, trying not to spit at him. “I. Don't. Care. You deserved everything they did to you and more.”

He regards her with that same flat look. “You seem to have cause and effect the wrong way around. Everything they did to me is exactly why they got everything they deserved.”

It's too much, and she leaves at a run to avoid grabbing her staff and beating him to death.

Luke looks better that afternoon though, and falls into what she hopes is a healing sleep.

Fucking damnit. 

The next day, she ignores him at breakfast when Luke declares himself well enough to critique her kata. But his energy is drained by lunch, and so she finds herself stood in the same spot in that damned cave.

This time, she decides, she'll steer the conversation to somewhere she wants it to go.

“Tell me about your dad,” she snaps as he rises to get the food.

He freezes in place, an emotion she can't place on his face. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Why bother? I'll tell you about my childhood with him, you'll think I'm lying, or exaggerating, or pathetic, you'll end up storming out just like yesterday, and I'll be left here having relived it to tell you for nothing. No. There is no positive outcome in that for either of us. I can tell you about Luke.”

She huffs. “You're lying already. I know your dad – he wasn't that bad.”

He glares at her, the first sign of the temper Luke alluded to whenever the subject had come up. “No. You _met_ my father. Big difference. Most people could be charmed by him on a short term basis. Even his enemies sometimes agreed he was entertaining to have around for small periods of time. It's the longer ones that are the problem.”

She leans in, smiling sweetly, pleased to have gotten a reaction. “ _Definitely_ lying. He gave you everything and you-”

Even with his Force locked down, he's still fast, and she only just ducks in time when he scoops up his plate and flings it at her, an on-target shot even through the bars. “GET OUT!”

She recovers, standing upright again, only to be hit in the head by the canister; thankfully, it's not all that hard at this distance. “OUT!” he screams, slamming his fists against the bars in sheer rage.

She's been around bullies at the old scrap yard, but this unfettered, blind rage is new to her, and frightening. She leaves fast, not daring to turn her back as he, still screaming, tears his cell apart.

Luke is awake and looking much better when she hurries into his hut.

“He's...barely fighting me hardly at all. But I can feel his anger.” He peers at her. “What did you do?”

She sits, feeling oddly guilty. “I asked him about Han.”

“Ah.”

They sit in silence for a while. “Why...” she starts. “I mean, how...”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose. “He and his dad...they were never really a match.”

“That doesn't mean he deserved what he got!” She is unable to stop her vehement response.

“No, of course not. And I never said he did. But to classify them as close would have been a misnomer. I think Ben might have been secretly relieved when he left for Jedi training, in fact.”

“Then why the temper tantrum?” If she strains, she can still hear the sound of someone kicking metal bars. Or that might be her imagination.

“You'd have to ask him – and have him answer – to know that.”

She would, she resolved internally. She would.

**Author's Note:**

> I swear to god, y'all, I have been slamming my head against the keyboard with my latest DA chapter, and I have never been a big star wars fan (Trekkies that are unexpectedly reading this and are surprised at themselves, I FEEL YOU) but then I saw the movie and the damned characters won't get out of my head, fucking seriously.
> 
> I promise I'm just going to hammer this out and then get back to Infinitum. I promise. If I don't I'll go mad.
> 
> But yeah. Watching the film for the second time (I have an unlimited card, thank fuck), a possibility totally jumped out at me about an angle Kylo might totally be working and NO ONE ELSE HAS MENTIONED THIS POSSIBILITY. At all.
> 
> Which leaves me thinking I'm missing something huge, which would render this all totally pointless, but then I just had to get out a way that Rey and Kylo could totally discuss this, as a way of getting it out there, because I didn't want to sit down and write what I thought the next two films should be. I have a life. Or I did. It was around here somewhere.
> 
> *whimper*
> 
> Reviews, as always, are welcomed with open arms.


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